


An Exercise in Holding One's Breath

by mariana_oconnor



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boys Being Idiots, Coming Out, Dated technological references, Friends to Lovers, Kink Meme, M/M, Mario Kart, Oblivious Merlin, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, Pining, Pining Arthur, Slow Burn, Sorry Freya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-13
Updated: 2009-12-13
Packaged: 2019-03-22 22:58:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13774410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariana_oconnor/pseuds/mariana_oconnor
Summary: Prompt:Arthur/MerlinArthur has known he was going to marry Merlin since they were little and he said Merlin had stupid ears and Merlin kicked him in the shin. Too bad he never got Merlin to agree to it because they still fight like children.(This is not a marriage promt, I want to read about how at least one of them has been in love with the other since they were little kids, I very much would like for it to end with a wedding but that’s optional)No wedding, but there is a lot of Arthur pining.





	An Exercise in Holding One's Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Another of my "transferring all my fic" project. This one is actually a de-anon from the Merlin Kink meme([here](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/6914.html?thread=3943170)) from 2009.  
> Eech, that was a while ago.  
> I actually know that this has been recced in a few places, which is awesome. Thanks for that.

Arthur Pendragon had been in love with Merlin Emrys since he was five years old. It was not a very well known fact. He’d closely guarded it as a secret since the day when they met, twenty three years ago, on the first day of school.  
  
Of course, being five years old at the time, he hadn’t really gone about being in love the traditional way: he had walked up behind Merlin and pulled one of his ears, calling him Dumbo… It hadn’t gone down well. Merlin had glared at him and kicked him in the shin before running off with his arms crossed.  
  
Arthur hadn’t known that he was in love right then exactly. He had known that he liked it when Merlin looked at him, even if it was a glare of undisguised hatred. He had also known that Merlin was going to be his friend forever, in the way that five year olds did.  
  
So he had followed Merlin around all day, making fun of his clothes and his hair and the way he spoke. Merlin, in turn, had told Arthur that he was insufferable. Neither of them had known what the word meant, but that had been that. Five minutes later when another boy had tried to steal Merlin’s football, Arthur had, with bitter determination, launched himself at the bigger boy and ended up with a fat lip and skinned knees for his efforts… but not the ball.  
  
Merlin had huffed and eyed the shreds of Arthur’s new school trousers (scratchy grey things that he had hated from the moment he set eyes on them).  
  
Arthur couldn’t remember the exact words that Merlin had said then as he led Arthur to the school nurse, he could only remember the fact that, by the time they got there, they were both grinning so widely that the nurse was taken back and Merlin was Arthur’s favourite person in the world.  
  
It took him another three years to realise that he loved him, and then in the way that eight year olds loved their favourite toys and favourite teachers. Another argument, as it turned out.  
  
The argument hadn’t been the point though; the point had been the way that Merlin glared at him and didn’t even step down a little bit. Arthur had glared back and when Merlin had stormed away to play with someone else – someone who wasn’t such a ‘prat’ – Arthur had watched him go and realised that he loved Merlin. It wasn’t so much an epiphany as something falling into place. He still hadn’t apologised, but by the next morning they were best friends again, playing football as Arthur mocked Merlin’s inability to kick anything in the right direction.  
  
Arthur’s teenage years were terrifying. Not least because it was then that he realised what exactly it meant when he got nervous when Merlin smiled at him. He realised that he didn’t snigger at the idea of their German teacher’s breasts and when he got his first girlfriend, kissing her felt more like being attacked by the saliva monster than in any way pleasurable.  
  
It had occurred to Arthur that this might be her problem rather than his, though, so he had practised again and again and again. There had been Sophia and Vivian and Lauren with the pretty brown hair. Gwen had even agreed to go out with him for a week and they had gone to the cinema, much to his sister Morgana’s amusement. It had been awkward and his hand had been sweaty when he had held hers, though she had been very nice about it, and when he had kissed her he felt completely disconnected.  
  
She had smiled as he said goodbye and, with her lips pressed together in a very pretty smile, she had said:  
  
“Let’s not try that again,” and they had both laughed, easy and happy. In impulse he had kissed her on the cheek and it had felt like when he kissed Morgana.  
  
Three days later, Merlin had been over for their traditional homework night, in which no homework ever got done but hours of Mario Kart were played and he had looked across at Merlin and wondered, almost as an afterthought, what it would be like to kiss him.

It had caught him by surprise, so much by surprise because though he  _knew_  he loved Merlin; he had also known that he liked girls. He was supposed to like girls, that was normal, he was sure.  
  
But when Merlin won that race (because Arthur was too busy having a small sexual crisis to bother paying attention) and he smiled, Arthur wanted to kiss him more than anything in the world and he realised that maybe he had been right when he was eight years old, he did love Merlin, but in a different way.  
  
Most fifteen year old boys, confronted by being gay, would have freaked out, they would have tried to deny it or fight against it, but Arthur had never been most boys. He had just smiled back at Merlin, and marvelled at how  _easy_  this made things. Girls, he didn’t understand. Girls wore make up and high heels and laughed nervously when he got too close. Girls had bras and fathers who glared at you like you were the antichrist.  
  
Merlin… Merlin Arthur knew. He knew what to say to make him laugh, when to just shut up and get him in a head lock. He knew exactly what he could tease Merlin about and which things were out of bounds (he would never make a crack about Merlin’s Mum again after that black eye). Merlin didn’t expect him to be polite or to open doors for him and he certainly didn’t have to worry about Merlin’s father, who even Merlin had never met. Though he would have to be a little careful about his Mother: she was lovely, but he had a strange idea that if he ever hurt Merlin then she would chase him to the ends of the earth and beat him to death with a spatula.  
  
Merlin, Arthur thought, would be easy. He couldn’t have fallen in love with anyone better really. He wasn’t entirely sure what boys did with other boys – though he sniggered along with the others at the probably rude jokes some of the other members of his class made about ‘queers’ and ‘faggots’ – but it had to be better than saliva monster kisses and thinking about Morgana. Given how easy Arthur had found his way around his own body in his early teenage fumblings, always with his lips clamped together in case Morgana or his father was around, then Merlin’s – which he had seen on numerous occasions before and seemed fairly normal – should be fine.  
  
So he didn’t need to bother with girls any more, he just needed to bother with Merlin.  
  
In hindsight, Arthur probably should have told Merlin about all this… but that really hadn’t factored into his plan, especially since, later that night, when he wrapped his hand around his erection and imagined that it was Merlin’s, he had come hard and gasping faster than ever before.  
  
They had been together forever, Arthur reasoned, and it would stay that way. Nothing was going to come between them. They still had Saturday Night Mario Kart championships and Arthur would loop one arm over Merlin’s shoulders as they walked between classes. He would punch him affectionately in the arm and push him into the lockers when Merlin wasn’t paying attention. It was the same as before, but Arthur knew that it was more now. He knew that when he wrapped his arm around Merlin he wanted it to mean that Merlin was his, and when he punched him in the shoulder it was because he knew that boys didn’t hold other boys hands and when he shoved Merlin into the lockers it was because he wanted the other boy’s attention again.  
  
Exams rolled around, with all the frantic revision and terror they would always bring. The sun was high and there were long revision sessions in the long grass behind Merlin’s house until the back of Arthur’s neck was brilliant red with sunburn, matching the tips of Merlin’s ears.  
  
Sometimes Gwen tagged along, sometimes she didn’t. But Arthur thought she knew in the way she gave him secret, knowing smiles.  
  
Morgana knew too, in the annoying way she had. He would tell her he was going to revise with Merlin and she would raise a well-plucked eyebrow and ask if  _that_ was what they were calling it these days.

Hunith would come back and hurry them inside, handing over a bottle of after-sun and sighing in long-suffering amusement at boys. Merlin had volunteered to smear the cream on the back of Arthur’s neck and Arthur had sighed at the twin sensations of the blessed cold and the feel of Merlin’s hands, trying to ignore the fact that his body wanted a whole lot more than just slimy rubs on the back of his neck.  
  
He had watched as Merlin coated his ears with the stuff as well and wished that he had an excuse to do that for him.  
  
The halcyon days of study leave had departed faster than they had come, too fast, both for Arthur’s grades and for his time with Merlin. Exams had come, hour after excruciating hour in the stuffy school hall with teachers patrolling up and down, up and down.  
  
He had risked a few glances at the back of Merlin’s head where he sat in the middle of the E section, but Merlin had never looked back at him. In the end Arthur had bent himself to his papers, writing on Shakespeare and algebra and the Second World War, trying to remember all those words that had seemed so unimportant back in lessons.  
  
Somehow, with some of the luck that he had always had, he managed to come through with good marks, brilliant marks, really, and Merlin had managed as well.  
  
He remembered Results Day well. It had been the first time he had been drunk, properly completely pissed. He had had a beer before, a couple of drinks, but he had never been more than tipsy.   
  
The Results Day party had been at Merlin’s house, a smallish gathering: the two of them, Gwen, Will and a few others. Merlin had disappeared and come back, half way through the evening, with two jingling carrier bags of booze.  
  
It turned out that Merlin was the cheapest date ever, Arthur had not been complaining about that as he draped himself over Arthur’s left side, warm and solid and very… pliant.  
  
He had murmured words into Arthur’s neck and Arthur remembered thinking that he could stay like that forever, with his friends laughing around him and Merlin mouthing nonsense words into his neck, one hand fallen onto Arthur’s thigh just that little bit too close to areas which really wanted the attention.  
  
Then Merlin had had another drink and tried to stand up. Arthur had ended up escorting him up to his room, not even slightly amused by Gwen’s whispered comment about getting a room.  
  
For someone so small, Merlin had weighed a ton, and it seemed that when he was drunk he confused stairs with slides and kept trying to fall down them with drunken snorts of laughter.  
  
“You are trollied,” Arthur had said when he finally manoeuvred Merlin into his bed, an ungainly lump in the middle of his old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles duvet.  
  
“Yep,” Merlin agreed helpfully. “Rat… arsed…” He laughed again. “Ratarsed, rattarsed. RAT… arsed… I have the arse of a rat… a rat’s arse…” he hummed quietly to himself.  
  
“If you say so,” Arthur had told him, trying to get the covers over him rather than under. Merlin was squirming and fidgeting and fighting him until, suddenly, he wasn’t. He was lying very still, looking at Arthur like he was the most interesting thing in the world. It made Arthur’s breath catch a little, but he covered it up with a shake of the head and a smirk. “Did Will draw something on my face?” he asked.  
  
“No,” Merlin said.  
  
“Then what is so fascinating about my face?”  
  
Merlin didn’t reply and Arthur risked looking away from where he was pulling the duvet up. It was a mistake. Their eyes caught and Arthur’s will, lowered by alcohol and exhilaration, crumbled.  
  
He moved forward as if he was in a race, rushing to press their lips together. It was clumsy and tasted of the foul rum that Merlin seemed to have developed a taste for. Merlin’s lips were chapped and rough and the angle was all wrong, but there was that thrill of sensation right in Arthur’s stomach that he had not known he was waiting for when he had kissed all those girls.   
  
He pulled away a second later when Merlin had started snoring.  
  
He had proceeded to go downstairs and try to finish off every bottle downstairs in some strange attempt to delete the memory of his lips against Merlin’s and that  _look_  in Merlin’s eyes.

But when he woke up in the morning, the memory was still there, and a circus full of tap-dancing elephants had come to join it.  
  
Morgana had brought him an aspirin and a glass of water along with a piece of dry toast and, in a display of sisterly affection Arthur had never expected, she had also managed to keep his father away from him until he was less of a wreck.  
  
Merlin, on the other hand, had phoned up at half three in the afternoon, blissfully hangover free, laughing as he asked what had happened after the third game of ‘I never…’  
  
“You don’t remember?” Arthur had asked, in utter disbelief. That moment was still stuck on replay in his head.  
  
“No… God, and I’d only had a couple of drinks,” Merlin was laughing again and Arthur could picture him, grinning inanely.  
  
“Nothing happened,” he said, “nothing at all…”  
  
“Oh good,” Merlin replied. “I didn’t want to miss anything.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Arthur lied through his teeth, “you didn’t.”  
  
It was at about that time, when he was sixteen, almost seventeen and officially  _desperately_  in love with his best friend, that he realised that it might not be as easy as all that after all.  
  
Especially since Merlin did actually seem to like girls. When Morgana wore a low cut top it was difficult to get his attention and he had horrendous crushes on other girls with ridiculous names, like Nimueh. It didn’t help that they seemed to notice his peculiar awkward charm as well, in a way that Arthur thought only he had. They smiled and flirted and, when the start of sixth form came around, Merlin officially had a girlfriend.  
  
That didn’t last long. They were still too young for seriousness.  
  
But it didn’t stop there. Merlin seemed to have a never-ending supply of women queuing up after him, if his dates were anything to go by and no matter how horrible Arthur was to them or how much he attempted to keep Merlin away from them, they kept coming back, or they were replaced with a new one, whose breasts were just as irritating when they were pressed up against Merlin’s side like that.  
  
Arthur learnt to smile at them and laugh until one night Merlin called him up and said.  
  
“I just… with Jessica,” he said.  
  
“You just what?” Arthur asked, still half asleep.  
  
“ _Had sex_ ,” Merlin whispered back. “You never told me it was like that.”  
  
“Like what?” Arthur asked, hoping the answer would be ‘awful, horrible, squelchy and with far too many breasts.’ It wasn’t.  
  
“Brilliant,” Merlin said, and Arthur could just picture him, leaning back on his bed, face flushed and his smile so big that it split his face almost in two. In some sort of subconscious masochism, his mind filled in Merlin’s ruffled hair, more dishevelled than usual and clothes half done up. He had to grit his teeth to keep from saying something he would regret. “You should have  _told me_.”  
  
“I never kiss and tell.”   
  
Somewhere along the line, Merlin had picked up the idea that Arthur was a ladies’ man, that he had at some point in the last couple of years (and Arthur wasn’t sure when Merlin thought this was, because Merlin pretty much knew what Arthur was doing every second of every day) had lots of sex with lots of girls.  
  
The fact that he had never even got to second base… or even first base really, wasn’t something he was advertising. So as he listened to Merlin telling him things that he had  _never_  wanted to hear, he tried to sound as though he understood.  
  
It sounded awkward and uncomfortable, but not as much as that conversation had been.  
  
In order to hide his discomfort, Arthur had fallen back on the tried and true method of insulting and joking with Merlin. He interspersed comments like ‘considering you can’t get out of your t-shirt without falling over, I’m impressed that she even stayed around’ and ‘I’m surprised you even know what the clitoris is, let alone how to find it,’ Arthur did not know where the clitoris was. He didn’t want to know. It was another one of those words that made him grateful that men just weren’t that complicated.

Arthur was torn between aroused and jealous for the entire night. He’d want to fling the girl over a cliff, but then he’d imagine Merlin naked and fumbling, but still grinning like a maniac and all he would want to do was bring himself off.  
  
When he had gone into school the next morning it was the first time in almost eight years he had not stopped by to speak to Merlin before anyone else.  
  
Things had been awkward after that. Merlin had been full of how brilliant girls were and Arthur had just wanted to grab him, throw him against the nearest wall and say ‘you’re mine for fuck’s sake, and you’ve been mine since you were five years old and still sucked your thumb.’  
  
On the day when he came back from the cinema with Merlin and his latest girlfriend, their hands stuck in each other’s back pockets and their eyes glued to each other, Morgana had ordered pizza, rented a trashy kung fu movie from Blockbuster and told him every dirty joke she knew, even the ones that were sexist.  
  
She hadn’t asked and he hadn’t told, but the film had at least been funny, even if he hadn’t got two thirds of the jokes.  
  
Three weeks later and Merlin flopped back onto Arthur’s bed, throwing his teddy bear (that Arthur did  _not_  still sleep with, thank you very much) up and down in the air muttering curses about all women.  
  
He had been dumped, it seemed, and Arthur had been designated to pick up the pieces.  
  
In the feeling that there was only one thing to do, Arthur had raided his father’s alcohol cabinet, grabbed a bottle of something that might have been whiskey and proceeded to get them both drunk. Merlin had ended up asleep on his bed, curled up on one side and Arthur had just stared at the ceiling.  
  
He had known that he and Merlin were destined to be together since he was five years old. The only trouble he had was trying to get Merlin to work that out.  
  
The last years of school seemed to pass too quickly and there had been more exams and sooner than Arthur had ever expected, he was heading off to University. Not the same University as Merlin and that was the problem.  
  
If Merlin was surprised that Arthur phoned him every week (far more often than he ever phoned his father) he didn’t say anything, and they made a point of visiting each other at least once a term and, for once, Arthur allowed himself to have a hug. Every time he greeted Merlin from the train: nothing long or incriminating, but a quick embrace, patting Merlin on the back in a manly fashion.  
  
It was during University that Merlin worked out that Arthur was gay…  
  
Worked out probably wasn’t the right choice of phrase. It was more like having his face rubbed in it.  
  
Arthur had not seen the point in keeping it from his new friends at University. One of them had asked Arthur whether he had a girlfriend and he had thought about going along with it before he had realised that these people didn’t know him, or his father, or anything about him, and he had just shrugged and said that he wasn’t really interested in girls.  
  
Part of him had been expected astonished gasps or harsh whispers of ‘sodomite’, although he knew he was being ridiculous. What he got was a raised eyebrow from Lance and then a slow nod accompanied by a ‘cool’. One of the girls on the other side of the table had groaned theatrically.  
  
“Why are all the best looking guys  _gay_?” she had asked rhetorically. “I don’t suppose you’d consider going straight for me, would you?”  
  
“Sorry,” Arthur had told her and she had sighed, her shoulders drooping.  
  
“It’s fine… it was worth a shot.”

So when Merlin showed up, they had all assumed that he knew. Arthur hadn’t really mentioned the fact that they were the first people he had told and, when he introduced Merlin as ‘my best friend’ it wasn’t really their fault for assuming that, at some point during their thirteen year friendship he had mentioned the fact that he preferred men. Really, at some point in their thirteen year friendship, he should have.  
  
So it wasn’t Arthur who told Merlin he was gay. It wasn’t Merlin who worked it out, it was an off colour, joking comment from one of his Uni friends about which he’d prefer to shag: Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom… unsurprisingly during a Friday Night Pirates of the Caribbean DVD night.  
  
Merlin had covered up remarkably well, just laughing along with the rest as Arthur said, his heart thudding so much faster and harder than usual, that he wasn’t picky.  
  
That night, however, as Merlin was unrolling his sleeping bag onto the blow up mattress he had looked up and said, a little quietly.  
  
“How long have you known?”  
  
Arthur had not bothered asking what he meant.  
  
“A few years,” he said, shrugging.  
  
“Years…” Merlin had muttered, “how many?”  
  
“Since I was fifteen,” Arthur told him, which was partially true. He didn’t bother adding, ‘I think I’ve always known on some level since I was five and you stuck your tongue out at me’.  
  
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Merlin asked. He sounded hurt, and like the ground had been ripped out from under him. Arthur didn’t know whether Merlin could see, but he shrugged again.   
  
“I don’t know… I never found the right time.”  
  
“You honestly think I would…” Merlin didn’t even finish the sentence. “ _Any_  time would have been the right time. I told you everything.”  
  
“I know,” Arthur said, feeling guiltier than he could ever remember having felt before. “I never told you I wasn’t gay.”  
  
“That is not the point!”  
  
“You’re my best friend, I thought… I thought I was your best friend.”  
  
“You are!”  
  
“Then why do  _they_  know, when I don’t?”  
  
“I…” Arthur sighed.  
  
“You are such an arrogant git. You get new friends and suddenly you haven’t got the time for the rest of us anymore.”  
  
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Arthur asked. “I speak to you every week.”  
  
“But apparently you don’t tell me anything.”  
  
They had gone to sleep that night without resolving anything. At least, they had eventually gone to sleep. Arthur hadn’t been able to drift off for hours, wondering when he had fucked everything up, and from the restless noises from Merlin, he guessed that he was awake for a while too. They didn’t speak, just lay there in tense silence.  
  
In the morning, Arthur woke up early and got dressed, sitting on the edge of his bed, just watching Merlin until he woke up, trying to get the words straight in his mind. He didn’t know how much to tell, how much to conceal.  
  
When Merlin’s eyes opened slowly, smiling before hardening as he remembered last night, Arthur decided to go for broke. He had never been accused of being a coward… at least never twice by the same person.  
  
“You’re an idiot,” he said, which wasn’t quite what he had intended to come out of his mouth, but it was good enough. Merlin had opened his mouth to speak, but Arthur hadn’t let him. “You assumed I was straight, so I went along with it, it was easier.” He paused. “I wanted to tell you.”  
  
“Then why didn’t you?” Merlin asked. He was watching Arthur carefully, like he was trying to understand. Arthur opened his mouth, but he couldn’t get the words out. So he just looked at Merlin, with his hair sticking in every direction and the criss-cross red lines on his face from the creases of the pillow.  
  
It turned out he didn’t have to say anything, just stay there trying to keep his face under control, because Merlin’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Sometimes having been friends for as long as they had was annoying, like when Merlin could practically read his mind.

“Shit.” Merlin had said.  
  
“I told you, you were an idiot?”  
  
“How long?” Arthur didn’t even try to answer. Suddenly Merlin was sitting up, with that endearing nervous stumbling he always did.  
  
“I... right… I should be… going then.”  
  
“Merlin…”  
  
“I’ll be back,” he said, suddenly, clearly realising what this could look like. “I’ll be back Arthur. I’ve just… this is big, but I will be back.” He was suddenly so serious that Arthur couldn’t help but believe him, and then he disappeared out of the door, in nothing but his boxer shorts, which led, five seconds later to Tina, from down the corridor, popping her head in to give him the thumbs up and mumble ‘score’ around her toothbrush.  
  
She was gone before he could tell her that it wasn’t like that.  
  
Arthur was getting used to staring at ceilings when Merlin was around, they were suitably distracting from thoughts that his best friend would never want to speak to him again and also thoughts of all the things he wanted to do in this bed  _other_  than stare at the ceiling. He couldn’t deny that he’d had thousands of fantasies since he had got to university, mostly revolving around last night and Merlin having decided that he was gay since he’d gone to university, Arthur coming out and then the two of them proceeding to fuck like bunnies.  
  
One out of three wasn’t bad.  
  
To his credit, Merlin did come back, looking freezing cold and with a sheepish smile on his face.  
  
“You could have stopped to grab a coat, or even get dressed, before fleeing my rooms in horror, you know,” Arthur said, not looking down from the ceiling. It was really fascinating. There was a crack that reached into the middle. It made him wonder if the building was likely to collapse on him in his sleep. “Or did you want to make a fashion statement?”  
  
“I…” Merlin took a deep breath, “I’m sorry… panicked.”  
  
“I didn’t think you left to go and throw me a coming out party,” Arthur said, still not looking away.  
  
“Don’t be such a dick,” Merlin said, suddenly, going from tentative to angry in five seconds flat. Strangely, that was the moment Arthur knew that they were going to be okay. “I can’t believe you… you just spring something like this on me, and then you act all superior and put upon. Arthur… you are such an arrogant, self-involved, stuck up…”  
  
“Prat?” Arthur suggested.  
  
“Yes,” Merlin spluttered. “I don’t care that you’re gay. I don’t care if you…” he waved his hands in a way that Arthur decided was supposed to indicate ‘want to have hot gay monkey sex with me and make me scream and beg’… it could have meant ‘slaughter small fluffy animals’, but context was everything. “You’re my best friend and what I’m really angry about right now isn’t even the fact that you didn’t tell me… it’s the fact that you didn’t think you could.”

“And how exactly, Merlin,” Arthur asked swinging himself upright in one fluid movement so that he was staring Merlin directly in the eyes, “did you expect me to bring it up?”  
  
“Does it even matter?” Merlin asked. “You could have sung YMCA in pink lycra hot-pants and built a shrine to Clive Owen’s arse and I wouldn’t have cared.”  
  
Arthur took a moment to contemplate that image before shuddering, joined only a second later by Merlin.  
  
“Pink lycra hot-pants?” he asked after a second. Merlin grinned and gave a lopsided shrug.   
  
“For example.”  
  
“I’m gay, not on Little Britain,” Arthur told him, but he smiled anyway.  
  
It was a little awkward, with Merlin knowing about everything. Sometimes there would be an uncomfortable silence, where Arthur would have used to grab hold of Merlin or wrestle him to the ground, when he would draw back instead, and things would get a little stilted.  
  
Merlin went back to his own University on the Sunday night and Arthur stood on the station to see him off, hands stuck in his pockets, trying to ignore the urge to grab him and snog the life out of him.  
  
He had stuck his hand out, feeling a little like a robot or a doll, but Merlin had looked at it like the sight of his fingers, stuck together with tension and cold, was a huge insult.  
  
He had grabbed Arthur and pulled him into a huge bear hug that Arthur wouldn’t have felt comfortable with even if Merlin  _hadn’t_  just found out he was gay and in love with him. Then, as he finally pulled away, leaving Arthur a little bereft, he had whispered into Arthur’s ear.  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
He obviously meant it to be reassuring, in a Merlin sort of way, but it had the opposite effect entirely. Arthur felt it like a cut right into his heart. Merlin didn’t care either way, whether Arthur liked him or not.  
  
When the train pulled away, Arthur was still standing on the platform, his hands shoved deep into his pockets again, glaring at the floor and feeling like his world had crumbled around him.  
  
Arthur got on with his life… after a fashion.  
  
He learnt about gay sex – more than Merlin’s awkward descriptions had ever told him about sleeping with women – and found there were more than enough men willing to teach him. He learnt gasping on his hands and knees, and up against toilet walls, and on his knees with his lips wrapped tight around hot flesh. He made up for time lost and wasted on a dream that would never come true, a child’s belief in fairy tale endings. But every time and every thing he learnt, he thought about Merlin and when he woke up in the mornings he wondered whether it was really possible to meet the love of your life when you were five years old, or whether he was crazy.  
  
He told Merlin about a couple of the men, the ones who lasted more than a badly thought out night, the ones who made it back to his bedroom, and he could hear the relief as Merlin joked and commented on it. The unspoken question ‘you’re over me right?’ answered as well as he could with stories about chatting up a guy in a bar with the worst lines he could think of, hoping Merlin couldn’t hear the ‘never’ that lay underneath it all.  
  
Morgana came up out of the blue and caught him with his hands down another man’s pants, up against the wall of his room. She rolled her eyes and walked out again and he found her in the bar a few minutes later, after bundling the other guy out as fast as he could and struggling to straighten himself up.  
  
She shook her head at him and didn’t mention Merlin’s name, but it hung over the entire evening and Arthur couldn’t relax at all.

University finished, eventually, after three seemingly endless years with barely enough contact with Merlin to stop Arthur from quitting altogether. He managed his first with honours and Merlin came to his graduation, grinning as proudly as Morgana and his father were. They took photographs and got drunk and then, in the morning, they piled all of his stuff, exponentially more than he had arrived with three years ago, into the car before driving away and leaving that part of his life behind forever.  
  
Merlin’s graduation was a week later and Arthur went and applauded before stealing Merlin’s mortarboard and being chased around the park where Hunith took them for a celebratory picnic. The world was warm and slow, reminiscent of those days, years ago, when they had revised together and Arthur had learnt how to stare at Merlin without him noticing and Merlin had learnt about the chemistry of the blast furnace, happily oblivious.  
  
In the afternoon, he had been introduced to Merlin’s flavour of the month and managed not to break her hand when he shook it. She was short and pretty and her name was Freya. Merlin said it with the terrible reverence of the man in love and Arthur made himself smile, ignoring the feeling of Hunith watching him oh so shrewdly from the other side of the table.  
  
Somehow they both stumbled into jobs. Lowly interns at first, but pulling themselves up the promotion ladder rung by rung. They lived in the same town and they worked out a rough schedule so they saw each other at least once a week.   
  
Arthur bought himself a wii and Saturday Night became Mario Kart night again, even if Freya sometimes came along as well.  
  
He couldn’t hate her, not with the way she made Merlin smile, but he could take great pleasure in thrashing her every time he played against her and he could arrange things to do on evenings when she was busy. Arthur felt horrible, sometimes, when he looked at the pair of them together, but then Merlin would glare at him as he forced him off the track and it would be exactly like that moment when they were five and Arthur just couldn’t bring himself to care.  
  
Weeks grew to months and years, until time seemed to be flying past, yards of boredom punctuated with brief, glowing moments with Merlin.  
  
Which led him to today: seven  _years_  out of university and he still worked in the same company, though with significantly better pay and with a much larger office.  
  
He had moved flat twice since then, from the grotty one bedroom hole he had rented at first, to a huge two-bed penthouse. It had a view out over half the city, but Arthur felt a little lost in the place. He was used to large homes, the house he had grown up in had had ten bedrooms and it had just been him, Morgana and his father in it. But there was something different about living alone in a big place. The lack of noise drove him to distraction sometimes, so he had to switch on the radio just for some company. He felt like a pet parrot.  
  
He was making himself a coffee when the knock came on his door.  
  
Visitors weren’t a usual occurrence, and the only people who tended to turn up without warning were Morgana and his father, sometimes.  
  
So, when he swung open the door, he wasn’t expecting to see Merlin standing there looking like a wet weekend.

He stood aside without even speaking, letting Merlin stumble into the house.  
  
He grabbed his coffee, spooned some sugar into t and handed it over. Merlin just took it and gulped it down, his mouth not lifting at all.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“It’s fine,” Merlin said moving through to Arthur’s ridiculous living room, where the furniture had been designed for looks rather than comfort.  
  
“Which explains you showing up on my doorstep looking like someone killed your pet hamster,” Arthur said, unimpressed, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You know, you once yelled at me for feeling like I couldn’t tell you something.”  
  
Merlin looked up, startled, clearly not expecting that after all these years.  
  
“That goes both ways you know.”  
  
They sat down on the light leather sofa (and really, what had Arthur been thinking when he bought it? Impractical, uncomfortable, was there  _anything_  good about it) and he waited.  
  
But then again, Arthur had never been a patient person.  
  
“Don’t make me torture you, Emrys,” he warned, “what’s up?”  
  
“Lost my job,” Merlin said after a second, heaving a sigh. “And…”  
  
“And…?”  
  
“Freya left,” he said, sounding a little broken. “She went two nights ago. Left a note. Said she’d got into trouble with the police and she didn’t want to drag me into it.”  
  
“The police?”  
  
“Yeah,” Merlin laughed, uneasily. “She didn’t even explain how… and then, yesterday these two police officers come around to work and they start interrogating me there… apparently she got caught up in some sort of fraud at the bank and… God.” He set the mug of coffee down and dropped his head into his hands. “God… I can’t believe this… my boss didn’t like the police coming round, and one hint of the word fraud and he’s asking me to clear my desk.”  
  
“That can’t be allowed,” Arthur said, “He’s got to give you notice and he can’t just fire you because your  _girlfriend_  did something… I’m sure I can work out some way…” he was cut off by Merlin’s laugh.  
  
“I don’t want my job back, Arthur,” he said, shaking his head. “I hated it anyway. I want  _Freya_  back.”  
  
Arthur tried not to let that hurt too much. He had seen them together for seven years, seven years! It should not still make him bite down on his lip after seven years.  
  
But it did. Merlin looked wrecked. There were huge dark circles around his reddened eyes and every time he smiled it looked as brittle as a leaf skeleton.  
  
“I… I’m sorry.” Arthur had never been much good at the comfort thing. He liked to fix people’s problems, liked to make them smile by making the things that were wrong go away. But he couldn’t see how to fix this, couldn’t see any way to make it right and the part of his brain, way at the back, held down viciously by common sense, pride and honour, was screaming that Merlin needed comfort sex.  
  
“Can I stay here?” Merlin asked, and there was nothing that Arthur could say except yes. This was something he could do, something he understood.  
  
“Sure.”

And that was that. Merlin practically moved in and every night Arthur got home to find more of his stuff scattered across the previously spotless flat and Merlin sat on the sofa watching Eggheads and yelling at the television every time someone got what he considered to be an easy question wrong.  
  
Arthur didn’t mind, in fact, he loved it. Merlin wasn’t a morning person, but some strange sense of duty over Arthur paying for rent and food meant that he was up every morning to make Arthur’s coffee and shuffling around with glazed eyes, trying to find the sugar that Arthur hid in gradually more inconvenient places.  
  
He felt seventeen again and he knew that, no matter how many men he had slept with, no matter how much time he had spent throwing himself into work and trying to ignore everything else, he was still Merlin’s down to the tip of his little toe. Seeing Merlin’s feet impudently bare on his glass topped coffee table made him more amused than angry, although it would still lead to an argument. Choking on the amount of chilli that Merlin put in when he made curry had him grinning even as he downed a glass of milk.  
  
And his body was beginning to remember how much he loved the atmosphere around Merlin again. He found himself more aroused than he had been since he was in University, biting down on his lip again as he worked himself off in his bed, like he had when he was a teenager, knowing that Merlin was next door.  
  
But Merlin was still broken hearted, no matter how much he smiled. Arthur would find him staring out of the window and sighing when he thought that Arthur wasn’t paying attention and there was often a gap between them on the sofa, just large enough for one more person. Arthur felt like he should spread out across it, smothering Freya’s ghost with his body, but something held him back.  
  
He couldn’t take advantage, couldn’t belittle what Merlin was going through into some sort of game. It was more than that, so he kept his hands to himself, and the rest of his body too, and settled for the only connection between their two bodies as they settled down being Arthur’s feet pushing Merlin’s off the coffee table.  
  
Merlin managed to get a job after a while, not as good as the one he had had before, but he enjoyed it more, helping one of the top doctors at the nearby hospital and he confided in Arthur that he was thinking of taking a medicine conversion and going back to university.  
  
It was difficult to remember a time when Merlin had not lived with him, Arthur thought as he threw Merlin’s rolled up socks from the dining room table so that they hit Merlin’s bedroom door. It just seemed like it had been like this forever, the two of them.  
  
Almost a year to the day after Freya had walked out and Merlin had turned up on his doorstep, Arthur found himself sitting down in front of the television again, with Merlin sprawled out on his end, the customary space between them – impossible to cross now after almost a year of tradition.  
  
The DVD copyright screen came up, warning them about all the possible terrorist threats from pirate DVDs and they sank into their usual comfortable silence.  
  
It wasn’t until half way through the film, when one of Merlin’s comments seemed a little louder than useful, that Arthur looked over to see that his friend – always friend – had been inching across the space between them and now the only person who would be able to fit there would have been thinner than a supermodel.  
  
He started, in spite of himself, and when he turned back to the screen he couldn’t quite force himself to relax.

“You know,” Merlin said, conversationally, “you can invite guys back here, if you want.”  
  
“What?” Arthur asked, completely blindsided.  
  
“I don’t mind vacating the premises if you want to bring a guy over,” he said again. They were both watching the screen, but Arthur had the distinct feeling that neither of them was watching the film anymore. “Or I could just go into my room and put my headphones on… I have some very loud music if necessary.”  
  
Arthur knew he was blushing, but the idea, the thought of him and some guy… while Merlin was right there, in the next room. It just seemed wrong, or too kinky, or whatever. He knew he’d never be able to stop thinking about Merlin in there,  _knowing_  what he was doing. He would have some other man’s hands on him, in him, he would have another man pressed into the mattress, sweating and writhing beneath him and all he would be able to think about was Merlin and whether Merlin was imagining it, whether Merlin was sitting there thinking about what he was doing.  
  
He swallowed, ignoring the sudden tightening of his trousers at the very thought.  
  
“I… I don’t, I’m fine,” he said hurriedly.  
  
“Oh come on, Arthur,” Merlin said, with a knowing smile, Arthur could see it out of the corner of his eye and it made the urge rise up inside him again, the urge to just forget about what was right and what was fair and just push Merlin down into the sticky, uncomfortable leather sofa and make him moan. “It’s fine, I’m imposing here… I’m not going to crimp your style any more than I have already.”  
  
“You’re not…”  
  
“So what?” Merlin asked, “You don’t have sex?”  
  
“ _Mer_ lin,” Arthur growled, it was usually the only warning Merlin needed to impudently drop a subject… though he would always returned to it. But this time there was no hurried ‘fine, if you insist’, and Arthur had to carry on. “I’ve been busy with work.”  
  
“That busy?”  
  
“Is it any of your business?” Arthur snapped suddenly, “you made it very clear you  _didn’t care_  a long time ago.” There was a moment of silence between them, and Arthur could just hear the swelling music of the film in the background. It had reached the romantic part – typical.  
  
“Arthur?” Merlin’s one word was enough to make him pull himself together.  
  
“You’re not imposing, you idiot,” he said, pulling his blank, ‘I’m not in love with you’ cloak back around him. “You’re not getting in the way of anything, and if you even start thinking about leaving then I will…” He realised that Merlin was watching him with that shrewd glance he obviously had learnt off his mother, the look that always meant he was working out something Arthur didn’t want him to know. It was a stronger version of the look he got when he was looking for the sugar in the morning. It was the same look he got when they were playing cheat and he always knew when Arthur was lying.  
  
“Arthur…”   
  
“I’m tired,” he said, standing up. He could see where this was going, could see it coming like the train of inevitability down the track of destiny that he was tied across. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned and headed for his room, ignoring Merlin as he called out his name behind him and not letting the tension fall from his shoulders until the door was firmly closed behind him. He didn’t bother turning the light on, just went over to his bed and fell back onto it, staring up into the dark, back to his ceiling obsession after so many years.

It took Merlin less than five minutes to come in – without knocking, he never bloody knocked. He opened the door and light split the room.  
  
“You know what I just said about you not imposing,” Arthur said, keeping his voice tightly under control, “I take it back.”  
  
“If you didn’t want me to impose, maybe you shouldn’t have run away,” Merlin replied. Arthur turned to him in spite of himself.  
  
“I did not run away!” he snapped.   
  
“Right, so that was what?” Merlin asked, smiling broadly, “a strategic retreat.”  
  
“I was tired.”  
  
“Right, so tired you couldn’t be bothered to get changed before you got into bed,” Merlin said, nodding. “I thought you were just brooding.”  
  
“I’m not brooding,” Arthur protested. One of the floor boards creaked softly as Merlin began to pad his way over the floor towards the bed. “I’m not.”  
  
“Sorry, your highness,” he said, still smiling. Arthur pulled himself into a sitting position as Merlin settled himself down on the edge of the bed. “You’re not brooding, of course. You wouldn’t do something like that.” Long, pale fingers reached out to stroke Arthur’s fringe across his forehead, the touch made him shiver. “So…” Merlin said, taking a deep breath. “Still?”  
  
Arthur didn’t bother replying, it seemed a moot point at this stage. Merlin could read him like a book most of the time.  
  
“I’ve been thinking,” Merlin said, slowly. “I… I mean since Freya left, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. About how I didn’t know anything about her and about how I screwed things up.”  
  
“She screwed things up,” Arthur told him firmly.   
  
“Right… you have to say that,” Merlin told him with a warm chuckle, “you’re my best friend.”  
  
“Believe me,” Arthur said, “if you’d screwed up, I would have told you.”  
  
“You would as well,” Merlin said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “You really would. You would even have tried to get us back together,” he sounded a little awed and Arthur could only shrug. He wasn’t entirely positive about that. He’d like to think that he would have, but he was nowhere near as good a person as he wished he could be. “God, Arthur…  
  
“Anyway… like I was saying, I’ve been thinking and when she left, all I could think of doing was coming here to see you.”  
  
“If you’d gone anywhere else I would have had you killed,” Arthur commented, “I’m fairly certain that my firm has a hit man on retainer. One word from me and you would be sleeping with the fishes.”   
  
“You don’t work for the mob,” Merlin pointed out, “and you could never have me killed.”  
  
“Sometimes I could kill you myself, you’re so useless.” Merlin grinned again. It really wasn’t fair of him to keep doing that when they were having this conversation all over again.  
  
“Hit men aside,” Merlin went on, “I can’t do this,” he said suddenly, and Arthur nodded, summoning his blank face again, determined to do this with as much dignity as possible.  
  
“Right… if you want to move out then I’m sure I can help you find somewhere to stay,” he said. Merlin blinked at him, eyes wide with shock.  
  
“No… that’s not what I meant, Arthur. I don’t want to move out. Stop putting words in my mouth.”  
  
“Then get to the point already,” Arthur snapped back.  
  
“I was getting to the point before you interrupted me with your ridiculous inferiority complex.”  
  
“I thought I was arrogant,” Arthur said, a little smug.  
  
“You are, you’re also stupidly insecure,” Merlin replied. “I was going to… you… I need to say… I don’t know how… Arthur, we…”  
  
“If you’re just going to sit there and babble inanely, Merlin, then this can probably wait until morning,” Arthur said, huffing and making to lie down again. Merlin grabbed his arm, stopping him.  
  
“I’m not…. Oh you are  _insufferable_.” Merlin growled. “Couldn’t you be quiet for five seconds just to let me say…?”  
  
“You don’t appear to be saying anything,” Arthur pointed out.  
  
“For fuck’s sake!” Merlin exclaimed and suddenly he was lunging forwards and cool hands were holding Arthur’s face still as Merlin’s mouth descended onto his.

Merlin’s lips were still chapped, was Arthur’s first thought, stupid and mindless as it was. Just like they had been when they were sixteen. But this time his breath tasted a little like mint, as though he had had a mint or some chewing gum before he had come in – like he had been planning this. Arthur wanted to ask what was going on, but when his mouth opened, Merlin’s tongue slid into it as though it was made to.  
  
They weren’t sixteen any more and years of practise meant that they weren’t clumsy, although there was an uncertainty and hesitancy that had everything to do with this being  _them_.   
  
Merlin’s fingers were sliding round the back of his neck, where they had once innocently rubbed in after-sun and his other hand was drifting down Arthur’s torso.  
  
Arthur felt like he was breathing for the first time, the way Merlin tasted, the way he felt and moved against him, the feeling of his heat and his breath and everything. He wanted this forever, and this was everything he had ever wanted. The thrill was still there, the electric current that seemed to zap at his heart and make it jump erratically. He was twenty eight, not seventeen and it shouldn’t feel like this: the giddiness of first love, but that was what it was. Desperation and years of desire and he didn’t even realise that he had Merlin pushed down onto his back until he finally, finally, drew back to gasp air into his lungs and found himself looking down at the shadowy outline of Merlin’s face, mouth open in a way that seemed irresistibly filthy.  
  
“You…” he said, groping for the light switch – he had to  _see_  Merlin like this, lips swollen and face flushed, had to see what he had done to him, see if it matched the fantasies. “You’re straight,” he managed to say as the room suddenly filled with light.  
  
“After a kiss like that,” Merlin said slowly, and his open mouth spread into a grin that Arthur wanted to wipe off it. He didn’t want smiles, he wanted round ‘oh’s of need and pleasure. “You’re still thinking I’m straight.”  
  
“You’ve never… with another guy.”  
  
“I’ve never wanted another guy,” Merlin told him and Arthur had to kiss him for that, for being  _his_  just his in that way. His head was still spinning and he had to roll his hips against Merlin’s just to make sure that they were really there.   
  
“How long?” Merlin asked in a gasp as he pulled away again, looking down to appreciate the sight. Arthur didn’t want to miss a second. “You never told me before… how long?”  
  
“Since I met you,” Arthur said, reaching up to touch Merlin’s face, his thumb smoothing over Merlin’s rough lips until his tongue slipped out to catch it and suck it in. Arthur groaned without thinking. “Always…”  
  
“Kinky bastard,” Merlin muttered around his thumb, running his tongue over the soft bad of it before swirling around. “We were five.”  
  
“And you were infuriating even then,” Arthur said, reluctantly pulling his hand away from Merlin’s mouth in favour of beginning to strip him slowly, revealing centimetre after centimetre of flesh. “I loved that about you.”  
  
“I…” Arthur’s lips found Merlin’s nipples and he gave a startled squawk, arching off the bed. “I love you too,” he said, breathy and wrecked, his voice so low.  
  
“You’re only saying that to get me into bed,” Arthur said with a chuckle, exploring Merlin’s body with his hands.

There were so many things he had wanted to do, so many ideas he had. He wanted to run his mouth along all the lines of Merlin’s body, he wanted to spread him open and fuck him with his mouth and his fingers and make him squirm and writhe and beg for more, and he wanted to wrap his mouth around his cock and see what Merlin tasted life, and feel Merlin’s fingers tangling in his hair and feel him lose control as Arthur swirled his tongue around him. He wanted to open himself up and lower himself down and then ride Merlin and just… God, he wanted everything, everything all at once.  
  
There was a curious, ethereal feeling to the moment, like it would be gone if Arthur thought about it too much, like this was going to be the only time.  
  
He paused, his hands pushing Merlin’s trousers down his hips, and just stared down at him, drinking him in, not sure what he wanted to do next. Merlin’s hand found his and pushed downwards impatiently.  
  
“What do you want to do first?” he asked, and Arthur looked up in surprise. Their eyes caught and Arthur could see it there, all laid bare before him, Merlin decoded.  
  
“You… you really mean this,” he said, pausing.  
  
“And you call me the idiot,” Merlin said, his hand coming up to brush against Arthur’s cheek gently, tenderly. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t mean it.”  
  
“But you never…” Arthur said slowly.  
  
“And I never had a clue before you told me,” Merlin pointed out. He smiled, lazy, dirty, and full of promise. “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere. It’s been twenty three years… I can’t believe we only just got round to doing this.”  
  
“If you’d been paying attention,” Arthur said, dragging Merlin’s trousers off and flinging them across the room, before setting to work on his own clothes, Merlin’s hands helping. “Then we could have been doing this twelve years ago.”  
  
“You should have said something,” Merlin said, gasping as Arthur lowered his mouth to his chest again and began to suck his way down it, his fingers probing to find every sensitive spot they could, seeking them out and teasing at them one by one.   
  
“I was waiting for you to get a clue,” Arthur said, looking up at Merlin, watching his eyes widen as he looked back. He could feel Merlin’s erection straining against his bare chest and he had to smile.   
  
“Well you always said I was slow,” Merlin commented just as Arthur dipped his head lower to press a kiss to his inner thigh and one of his hands reached over to his bedside table, fumbling blind to find what he wanted.  
  
His fingers wrapped around the lube and he pulled it out, smiling up at Merlin a little wildly. He slicked up one finger, watching Merlin watching him and, as he began to gently, slowly push it into him he pulled up to press kisses to Merlin’s throat.   
  
“It’s okay,” he muttered, “It’ll be good, I promise…” he murmured into Merlin’s ear. “Relax…” He felt the muscles give and his finger slid in more easily as Merlin gasped. He swallowed down the noise with a messy, open mouthed kiss and pulled back to smirk again. “Twenty three years is a bit more than slow.”  
  
“O…okay… very slow,” Merlin said, his eyes opening, pupils huge and unfocussed. “God… Arthur.”  
  
He looked down at Merlin, spread beneath him, pale skin rosy and glistening with sweat, his hands clenched in the sheets and his mouth helplessly open in a silent moan and thought that  _this_  was probably worth waiting for.


End file.
